I guess I have a problem with nonrestrictive clauses, since that's what my grammer presentation is on. Anything that I feel is not a necessity to a sentence a surround in commas. Nonrestrictive clauses are a group of words, set of by commas, that are not essentail to the sentence. With or without that clause the meaning of the sentence remains the same. Nonrestrictive clauses can be at the end of the sentence or in the middle. You use commas when you are talking about one specific object that everyone knows about. If you are describing someone in a crowd, for instance, then you do not use commas.
The man in the black hat is 102 years old. Here you can assume that there are many more peolpe around the man. You describe him so others will know who you are talking about. That makes "in the black hat" essential, so no commas are needed.
But if you say it The man, in the black hat, is 102 years old. This could tell you that there is only one man and you wouldn't need to describe him for other to know who you were talking about.
For more examples go HERE!
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